Hugo Martinez

Hugo Martinez (1946-) was a colonel of the Colombian national police who served as the commander of Search Bloc during the hunt for Pablo Escobar.

Biography
Hugo Martinez was a veteran policeman who served on the police force for 26 years, and he spent three of those years fighting FARC in the jungles. He was methodical, favored procedure, and adhered to strict protocol, and he was seen as a reliable candidate for the leader of Search Bloc after the assassination of Colonel Horacio Carrillo by the Medellin Cartel in 1992. President Cesar Gaviria and United States ambassador Arthur Crosby agreed that Martinez was the right choice to lead the hunt for Escobar, but he had to be persuaded to accept the command.

Taking command of Search Bloc
After President Gaviria gave a speech to the 1992 graduates of the Colombian Police Academy, of which Martinez's son was a part, Gaviria asked Martinez to take command of Search Bloc. Martinez insisted that there was someone more up to the task than him, but Gaviria told him that his son happily joined Search Bloc along with other talented policemen, and he asked Martinez to consider the offer. Martinez was pressured into accepting the command, and he became the leader of the hunt for Escobar. He decided to change the Search Bloc's tactics from bullet-to-bullet with Escobar's men to grid searches, having his men search the barrios and process anything of use before heading to the next neighborhood. The tactic was conventional and dated, but he felt that it would be useful for the hunt against Escobar.